I went down the list of sites that aren't as well known to plot out what they think of Red Sox prospects. Here are the lists and the rankings of prospects from our system that I could find. They are not BP, BA, Law, Callis or Sickles... but I like to get as many points of view personally... so they are fun to look at.

weird X-Bo was left off a list....i wonder if scoutmlb left him off because he played xx amount of innings in the show?

It could be that... but he only had 18 regular season games and 12 post season games that he got into, so I can assume it was a mistake on their part. Every other site had him and had him in the top 7.

i just took another look. it looks like it's a list of 2014 Minor League prospects. As Xander will be with the big club from day 1 - possibly this is the reason? otherwise that is a glaring gaffe by them....

i just took another look. it looks like it's a list of 2014 Minor League prospects. As Xander will be with the big club from day 1 - possibly this is the reason? otherwise that is a glaring gaffe by them....

I just wrote them a note on the feedback section about Xander. It appears to be a mistake by the site.

i just took another look. it looks like it's a list of 2014 Minor League prospects. As Xander will be with the big club from day 1 - possibly this is the reason? otherwise that is a glaring gaffe by them....

I believe it's because he's expected to be in the majors full-time in 2014. That's why Bradley is not on their list either.

i just took another look. it looks like it's a list of 2014 Minor League prospects. As Xander will be with the big club from day 1 - possibly this is the reason? otherwise that is a glaring gaffe by them....

I believe it's because he's expected to be in the majors full-time in 2014. That's why Bradley is not on their list either.

Good call... I didn't even notice Bradley. I didn't go through the rational of the site and the method that they ranked the prospects. I was just trying to get all the lists in one place because I find it fun to compare. I'm not sure the answer, but if they email me back then I will post the reply here.

i just took another look. it looks like it's a list of 2014 Minor League prospects. As Xander will be with the big club from day 1 - possibly this is the reason? otherwise that is a glaring gaffe by them....

I believe it's because he's expected to be in the majors full-time in 2014. That's why Bradley is not on their list either.

You nailed it man... here is the official word

"Some of the prospects you'll see on other lists aren't on this one, as I've excluded any players that will be Opening Day starters in the big leagues. That means players like Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley, Jr., ... aren't on the list"

According to this article ppt.cc/Dt8J about 70% of prospects in the top 100 lists end up being busts. This is how the site defines success

Definition of success by WAR according to the article is as such:

The author then grouped prospects into groups of 10... meaning 1-10, 11-20, 21-30... etc to see if a pattern emerged

From these metrics... prospects 1-20 have about the same bust rate as do 21-50. From there 51-100 are almost the same as well... so statistically speaking prospects 1-20, 21-50 and 51-100 all have almost identical rates of success and being busts.

The other takaway from this article is that pitchers fail at a much higher rate than positional prospects. There are many less pitchers below the 30 ranking who go on to be stars vs. positional players. I think this means that pitching prospects tend to be overrated on these lists and are much less predictable (probably due to higher injury rates). It also means to me that pitchers are less projectable unless they are clearly head and shoulders above the competition.

The prospects 1-20 of pitching prospects flame out at about the same rate as prospects 21-50 of positional players. It should also be noted that the top 20 prospects in baseball are in a different league of their own... it is basically prospects 1-20 vs. 21-100 in terms of statistical analysis.

They put the prospects on a top 50 list based on votes from all 4 analysts and posted what each one voted. Here are the Red Sox prospects on the list and the overall rank to the left along with the votes to what place they should be at from each of the four votes.

Some of these lists are put together from other sites, an are not going by their own scouting.

Still good stuff, I just wanted to point that out. The WAR analysis in relation to prospect rankings was good stuff. It looks like the drop off from 11-20 is very small compared to 1-10. So it will be interesting to see where guys like Henry Owens, Jackie Bradley JR, and Garrin Cecchini rank when BA's list comes out.

Another thing to consider is the data collected to use here goes from 1990-2003. I would love to see how that data fares over the next 10 years (which to project a 2013 draftee reasonably would take over another decade)

Technology and social media have completely changed the landscape of scouting, and I would be willing to predict that the data will show in ten years from now that scouts have become better at predicting success.

Of course this comes without saying that it is only inherent to assume that to some extent you will never be able to predict future talent, because well.....no one can predict the future.

Good question. The way I see it, they would have almost identical value, depending on what you mean. If its the middle of each category I would give a slight edge top 10 guys[5-6]. Just change it to 7-8 however and they would be my last choice. And as the article indicates, depends on whether they are hitters or pitchers.

Something I have been thinking about lately. The makeup of our top 6 hitting prospects is mind blowing to me. Our top 6 guys have off the charts makeup. Their attitude, work ethic, defensive improvement, intelligence, willingness to listen, leadership skills, plate discipline, charisma, big stage ability, likability, and crap are all out standing. Seriously.

Another thing to consider is the data collected to use here goes from 1990-2003. I would love to see how that data fares over the next 10 years (which to project a 2013 draftee reasonably would take over another decade)

Technology and social media have completely changed the landscape of scouting, and I would be willing to predict that the data will show in ten years from now that scouts have become better at predicting success.

Of course this comes without saying that it is only inherent to assume that to some extent you will never be able to predict future talent, because well.....no one can predict the future.

Good points. My guess is that more recent highly rated prospects will do better than the ones from the time frame used in the study mentioned here.

Some of these lists are put together from other sites, an are not going by their own scouting.

Still good stuff, I just wanted to point that out. The WAR analysis in relation to prospect rankings was good stuff. It looks like the drop off from 11-20 is very small compared to 1-10. So it will be interesting to see where guys like Henry Owens, Jackie Bradley JR, and Garrin Cecchini rank when BA's list comes out.

Owens, Ranaudo, Barnes and Webster have a roughly 17% chance of being a success based on today's rankings... so under a 1 in 5 chance. That means that we are lucky to have one work out of the 4.

JBJ 30-35% chance of success, Cecchini, Betts, Swihart about 20-25% from the article

Position players have a roughly 60% (over 1 in 2 closer to 2 in 3) chance of success in the top 20. Pitchers roughly 40% chance in the top 20 (under 1 in 2 closer to 1in 3)

Position players have about a 37% (barely over 1 in 3) chance of success 21-50 and pitchers 23% ( slightly under 1 in 4)

Position players have about a 25% (1 in 4) chance of success 51-100 and pitchers 17% (under 1 in 5)

conclusion is 1 position player in the top 20 if valued at 100 is equal to 1.5 pitching prospects or a 66. That is about the same value but a tiny bit less for position players at about a 60 in position 21-50. Pitchers would be around a 40. Position players 51-60 about 36 and pitchers about 25... I'm tired so I estimated off the top of my head. Use a calculator for more details.

So 1 position prospect is 1.5 pitching prospects 1-20 and position prospects 21-50. it would take about 2.5 pitching prospects 21-50 and 3 position prospects 51-100 to equal one top 20 position prospect. It would take 4 pitching prospects to equal the chances of a top 20 position prospect and 3 to equal a top 20 pitching prospect.

To go further success is defined by 2-4 WAR per year so that comes out to around $12-24 million per year in value minus salary obligations if WAR is valued at $6 million per year.

Owens, Ranaudo, Barnes and Webster have a roughly 17% chance of being a success based on today's rankings... so under a 1 in 5 chance. That means that we are lucky to have one work out of the 4.

But, pitchers have a 33% chance of being succesful or superior, so we have a better chance that 2 are successful than just 1.

Successful is defined as a 1.5 to 2.49 WAR. Last year Doubront was 2.8, Alex Cobb was 2.4, Jake Peavy and Jerrod Weaver were 2.4, also at 2.3 to 2.4: julio teheran, G Cole, and I Nova. 2.2 or less: garza, S Miller, C Tillman and more

59% of positional players end up successful or superior, so with maybe 5 in the top 100, one could expect 3 to be successful or better. Combine that with the 2 likely pitchers, and we could have 5 out of the 9 become succesful or better. That's a nice influx of inexpensive youth to the 25 man roster. My guess is those 5 would be:

Bogaerts, Cecchini, JBJ, Barnes and Owens.

I still like our chances with Betts, Ranaudo and Swihart as well.

Webster and Ball are my two big guesses/doubts: Webster due to control issues, and Ball due to age and lack of sample size to judge by. Then, there are guys like Devers, Rijo, Margot, and maybe Denny that could all join the top 100 list next year.

The Red Sox also have a good reputation of beating the odds. If you look at all the Red Sox who have been ranked by BA over the last 10 years they've produced more than the average number of productive players and stars.